Principles of Sulfide Mineral Flotation

The goal of a detailed quantitative understanding of the variables insulfide flotation in terms of established, or new, scientific principles is still distant, although there has been a good beginning in the past 50 years with more rapid progress since 1930. Advances have paralleled closely those in other branches of surface chemistry and the development of a series of experimental techniques such as contact angle, surface area measurement, radioactive tracers, infrared spectra, electron diffraction, monolayer, and electro- chemical methods of investigation. The second editions of books by Sutherland and Warkl ( 1955) and Gaudin2 ( 19571, are detailed accounts of this progress. The complexity of sulfide mineral flotation systems is indicated by Sutherland and Warkl who list 32 variables of flotation, of which only 22 can usually be controlled by the metallurgist. A consequence of this multiplicity of variables, many of which may be specific to each particular ore, is that ways of floating sulfide minerals from new ores are still developed empirically. How- ever, this review will try to show how the chemistry of the function of frothers, collectors, depressants, and activators in sulfide flotation is being steadily unravelled. Chiefly, it will be concerned with the interaction of pure soluble compounds with individual sulfide minerals, the surfaces of which are often not stoichiometric for several reasons discussed by Plaksin.3 As a result, for example, a freshly cleaved galena surface has cathodic and anodic areas which have different degrees of oxidation and different reactivity to- wards collectors like xanthate. Such complicating considerations should be remembered in the subsequent discussion of pure minerals. THE NEED FOR FLOTATION REAGENTS After considerable controversy it has been established with a few exceptions that unoxidized, uncontaminated sulfides will not float. Moreover all flotation plants recovering sulfide minerals use collectors which are removed from the circuit with the sulfides. Gaudin, Miaw, and Spedden4 have discussed the relation between the crystal structure of solids and the native floatability of the exceptions mentioned above. A second question which has been much explored is the nature of the surface on which a collector like xanthate is adsorbed or reacts. Is this the un- changed surface of the sulfide mineral, or does the adsorption depend on the initial oxidation of the sulfide surface ? Sutherland and Warkl and Gaudin2 discuss the work of Taggart5 and others on this question without reaching any other conclusion than that oxygen was important.